Heroing is hungry work
by The madness in me
Summary: A hungry webslinger on a budget finds a novel way to satisfy his superhuman cravings, and he's not the only one.


"Eat!"

"Eat!"

"Eat!"

"Eat!"

"Eat!"

The cheers of the crowd grew in volume and enthusiasm as the boy shovelled mouthful after mouthful of taco into his face, he was quickly approaching the record and showed no signs of stopping. The staff and other customers watched on in amazement and disbelief.

When he had first shown up asking to take on the challenge the young man had been met with amused scepticism. Looking from a place of experience the proprietors had been certain that he would bow out after 10 tacos, 15 at most if he was really hungry. He looked like a college student; it was possible.

Now as he sunk his teeth into what would be his 31st taco in 50 minutes those who were lucky enough to be in the restaurant that day were stunned by what they were witnessing.

"Just one more!"

"Just one more!"

"Just one more!"

"Yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Wooooooo!"

He had done it. He had beaten the record.

How he had done it was anyone's guess.

He had probably ruptured something in the process but there was no denying he had eaten the damn tacos.

"Hey, smile for the wall"

The kid ducked at the sight of the camera, grabbing a menu to hide behind.

"Woah uh, no thanks I uh. No wall. I mean uh, no picture please. I'm um…I'm bloated."

The crowd laughed.

"Yeah, you just ate 32 tacos dude of course you're bloated"

"I'm camera shy" He insisted ducking away from the lens once more, standing up and bowing to the crowd who gave another round of applause, some of them still trying to talk him into taking a photo.

"Can I at least get your name to write on the board?" The manager asked with a frown.

"It's uh…Peter" he admitted eventually, grabbing his backpack from the floor and waving to everyone as he all but ran away.

…

Outside on the street, Peter patted his stomach in satisfaction feeling full for the first time in weeks and honestly genuinely a little bloated. For a moment he considered ducking into an alley and changing into his suit to swing home but after a somewhat embarrassing burp forced its way out, he elected to walk instead.

It felt a little dishonest he had to admit, but being spiderman took up a lot of energy and Aunt May was paying enough on groceries as it was without him constantly sneaking extra things onto the list to satisfy endless cravings.

Ever since his powers had developed Peter had felt hungry. Always so damn hungry. His metabolism flying out of control.

So, when he saw the sign on the menu promising free food in exchange for eating as much as you possibly could, well it was just perfect really.

So maybe he had an unfair disadvantage, it wasn't like he wasn't doing plenty for this city right? What harm was a free meal? A huge, delicious supremely satisfying meal. He had certainly made a few people happy today as well, watching and cheering as a skinny kid ate his way through an unholy amount of food.

All in all, a win, win.

….

Peter watched in amazement as the other man swallowed down another mouthful of steak and chips. After the taco challenge, he had started discretely making his way through any other eating challenges New York had to offer and had been pleasantly surprised by how many there were if you really look for them.

To avoid drawing too much unwanted attention to himself and to avoid cheating the restaurants themselves out of more than one challenge worth of food he made sure not to do any place twice; instead spreading them out to one every other week and working through each in a circuit.

It was fairly entertaining to see the surprise on other peoples faces as he ate and ate and ate unnatural amounts of food inside of inconceivable time limits.

Now for the first time Peter himself was experiencing that shock as another man not much larger than him was absolutely demolishing a 72oz steak with very little effort. In fact, Peter somehow got the impression he was actually holding back.

The other was already midway through his challenge when Peter arrived which is why the webslinger was now chowing down on a regular sized meal he had sadly been required to pay for, not wanting to overshadow someone else's achievement. The atmosphere in the place was lively and excited as everyone cheered the challenger on and Peter grinned around a bite of steak caught up in the merriment.

"That was impressive" He congratulated ten minutes later when the mammoth steak had been finished and several other customers had taken their turns shaking the guys hand.

He ignored the slight prickling sensation at the back of his neck in response to the man's smile which to Peter seemed to stretch just a little too wide "Oh that was nothing" The stranger laughed. "Just a light snack. You should see me when I'm really hungry"

A week later Peter would return and have his own name added to the steakhouses board of legends, right under the last winner; Eddie.


End file.
